Power Ministry crosses 13,000 village electrification milestone

NEW DELHI: Power Ministry achieved the milestone of electrifying 13,000 unelectrified villages against a target of providing electricity to 18,452 such settlements by 2018 as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Out of 18,452 villages, over 13,000 villages have been electrified as on date," Power Ministry said in a statement.

Earlier in 2015, Modi had announced in his independence day speech that all unelectrified villages (18,452) will be electrified in next 1,000 days i.e. 1 May, 2018.

"A moment of pride as we have electrified over 13,000 out of 18,452 villages. The remaining villages will be electrified by May 2018," Power Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted today.

According to the Garv portal which provides real time data on rural electrification, as many as 13,028 villages have been electrified so far, which constitutes 71 per cent of the target.

As per the portal, the rural electrification work is in progress on 4,589 villages and there are 835 unelectrified villages which are uninhabited.

“To save the environment and to fight climate change, my government has planned a major campaign. By 2022, we want to generate 175 GW of renewable energy. In the last three years, we have already achieved 60 GW or around one-third of this target,” he said.